STMicroelectronics, a global semiconductor leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronics applications and the world's largest supplier of components for terrestrial and satellite in-car digital radio receivers, has introduced the industry’s first digital radio chipset that enables simultaneous reception and processing of AM/FM and multiple digital-radio broadcasts (e.g. DAB+).
Complete with full software stack and support for a number of different broadcasting standards, ST’s new digital radio chipset started volume production in Q2 2012.
Developed in cooperation with Bosch Car Multimedia, ST’s multi-standard digital radio chipset shortcuts the path to high-performance, cost-effective car infotainment systems. These systems will enhance the driving experience with new-generation radio features and value-added services like synchronized streaming of textual and visual information, including real-time weather and traffic updates.
“We are integrating ST’s multi-standard digital radio receiver into our head-unit platform due to its outstanding performance, flexibility and integration benefits”,
said Dr. Michael Bolle, Robert Bosch Car Multimedia GmbH, Executive Vice President Engineering. “ST’s versatile solution allows us to easily address any market requirement with a cost-effective offering for next-generation in-car infotainment.”
The chipset can receive and decode up to four channels in parallel, two for FM phase diversity and two for terrestrial digital broadcasting (e.g. DAB). With this feature, the car radio can receive audio content from one channel, while pulling real-time traffic and weather information from another one at the same time. The radio receiver can also seamlessly switch between the analog legacy FM and the digital radio signals and simultaneously demodulate audio and data from two separate digital radio channels (DAB 1.5).
ST’s new digital radio chipset is a complete receiver solution based on one or more (up to 4) multi-standard RF ICs and a base-band processing IC running the full software stack. The chipset delivers superior real-time performance without bottlenecks in the baseband processing, coupled with low current consumption and minimized electromagnetic interference. It supports the DAB family of standards (DAB/DAB+/DMB-A), the Digital Radio Mondiale open broadcasting standard, as well as the HD Radio™ technology (when combined with an external co-processor).
An open-market product, ST’s digital radio chipset started mass production in Q2 2012. For further details and pricing options, please contact your ST sales office.
With fifteen years at the forefront of digital radio technology, ST is currently the world’s largest supplier of components for digital radio receivers, having shipped more than 80 million chips to date.